Background and objective: XAGE-1 is a cancer-testis (CT) antigen which was demonstrated to be expressed at a significant frequency and to be immunogenic in some tumors. The aim of this study is to explore the association between XAGE-1 gene expression and the clinical characteristics of lung cancer.
Methods: Tumor tissue and adjacent lung tissue samples from 85 patients were screened for expression of the four XAGE-1 transcript variants by nest PCR. The correlations between XAGE-1b gene expression and several clinical characteristics were analyzed.
Results: 32.94% (28/85) of lung cancer samples were positive for XAGE-1 gene. 59.46% (22/37) of the adencarcinoma samples and 21.74% (5/23) of the squamous cell carcinoma samples were positive for one of the four XAGE-1 transcript variants. The frequent of XAGE-1b gene in adencarcinoma was much higher than that in squamous cell carcinoma. There were not any important correlation between XAGE-1b gene expression and clinical characteristics, such as gender, age and clinical stage.
Conclusion: XAGE-1 gene is highly expressed in lung adenocarcinoma and XAGE-1 may be a promising immunotherapeutic target for lung cancer.
背景与目的: 研究证实XAGE-1作为一种癌胚抗原在多种肿瘤中高表达。本研究旨在探讨XAGE-1基因在肺癌组织中的表达水平及其与临床特点的关系。
方法: 肺癌患者85例，提取肺癌组织和癌旁组织总RNA，巢式PCR反应扩增XAGE-1四种剪接体基因，分析基因表达情况及其与临床特点的关系。
结果: 32.94%（28/85）肺癌患者癌组织阳性表达XAGE-1基因，在各种类型肺癌中，59.46%（22/37）的腺癌与21.74%（5/23）鳞癌患者癌组织阳性表达XAGE-1基因；XAGE-1b基因的表达与肺癌病理类型有相关性（P < 0.05），腺癌阳性表达率明显高于鳞癌，而与肺癌的性别、年龄及临床分期无相关性（P > 0.05）。
结论: XAGE-1基因在肺癌尤其腺癌组织中高表达，该基因可以作为免疫治疗的靶基因。